History was almost made last night on Jersey Shore. We're speaking, of course, about Vinny and the Situation’s near-three-way. Having found only one willing lady to accompany them home, Vinny and the Sitch giggled as they shook hands and warned each other to “stay on your side.” Then, on the cusp of the great moment, Vinny locked the door of their bedroom, forcing his disappointed bunkmate to eat a peanut butter sandwich and not have sex with Deena. We were so close, ya’ll!

The gang really could have used that threesome, if only to break-up the intense pouting that beset the house following the Incident — or Why Your Should Take Your Earrings Off Before You Step To JWoww. Ronnie and Sammi have fully isolated themselves from the rest of the house in a painful hall of sighs. Despite their attempts to distract themselves (Snooki can fit right in a suitcase!), Deena and Snickers are consumed by the drama, alternately categorizing Sammi as a hawk, a “female backpack,” or furniture. JWoww then almost decapitates the duck phone after drunkenly forgetting to wish her boyfriend a happy anniversary, in a fury that is approximately only 1/10 of the rage she feels toward Sammi. A threesome really would have helped remind all these unhappy party-people that the Shore is all about. But alas …

There were a few scenes amidst the misery that brought us back to that special place and time in Jersey Shore history (i.e. 2009). “I will poop in a bush. I will hide in a bush,” Snooki declares from within the patio shrubbery. Vinny, rocking shades and almost certainly rolling, weaves through the club in an attempt to ditch a persistent grenade. “She’s a parasite and I’m the host,” he pants, shimmying between a folding partition and the wall. Later, after a rousing game of roof-top kickball, Vinny, Snooks and Deena retrieve their lost ball with a broom and some plastic piping. Snooki licks the tip of the too-big broom before successfully jamming it in the tube. Vinny elbows her and crows, “That’s what we should have done!” Perfectly silly, with a hint of filth: that exactly what we want in our Jersey.

Unfortunately, just as things are hitting their familiar goofy stride, Ronnie and Sammi manage to throw their wet blanket over the family’s sacred Sunday Dinner. Instead of eating at the house, the morose duo instead partakes of each other’s misery, wolfing down restaurant burgers before hitting the boardwalk for a few stuffed prizes. “You can’t come in on a Sunday with a big banana and think everything’ll be peaches,” warns a wide-eyed Pauly D, who you know he isn’t joking.

Ron’s mounting frustration at Sammi’s hostility towards, well, basically everyone finally comes to head as he drags her around the amusement park like a sullen anchor. (By the way, is Snooki actually tall enough to ride a roller coaster? How many waivers did she have to sign to get on there?). “Why are you the only one who’s allowed to hurt?” Ronnie begs his weeping girlfriend in a stunning moment of emotional lucidity. But as his snarling putdowns soon remind us — seriously, guys — these two should not be within arm’s length of each other, let alone dominating the show’s trajectory. Hopefully they will soon realize soon that they can barely stand each other, and we can move on to bigger and better things — namely, Snooki with poof askew, goldfish mouth gasping, shouting that she’s a human being as the police lead her away. That's apparently what we have to look forward to next episode, and looking forward to it we most certainly are.